112 INDOOR STUDIES 



tion spoke in the words lately uttered through the 

 "Times " by Sir Auberon Herbert. He says: — 



"All great state systems stupefy; you cannot make 

 the state a parent without the logical consequence 

 of making the people children. Official regulation 

 and free mental perception of what is right and wise 

 do not and cannot coexist. I see no possible way 

 in which you can reconcile these great state services 

 and the conditions under which men have to make 

 true progress in themselves." 



But to preach such notions in England, Arnold 

 would say, is like carrying coals to Newcastle. They 

 would be of more service in France, where state 

 action is excessive. In England the dangers are 

 the other way. 



" Our dangers are in exaggerating the blessings of 

 self-will and of self-assertion; in not being ready 

 enough to sink our imperfectly formed self-will in 

 view of a large general result. " 



There seems to be nothing in Hellenism that sug- 

 gests Catholicism, and yet evidently it is Arnold's 

 classical feeling for institutions that gives him his 

 marked Catholic bias. The Catholic Church is a 

 great institution, — the greatest and oldest in the 

 world. It makes and always has made short work 

 of the individual. It is cold, stately, impersonal. 

 Says Emerson : — 



"In the long time it has blended with everything 

 in heaven above and the earth beneath. It moves 

 through a zodiac of feasts and fasts, names every day 

 of the year, every town and market and headland and 



